Why He Never Slept
by ScottishTimeLady
Summary: The reason why the Doctor never falls asleep... or at least tries not to.


**Why He Never Slept**

The Doctor felt a sharp jab in his side and with it came a pang of annoyance, as if he was being woken from a deep, very comfortable sleep… in fact, was he? He was lying on his back with his eyes closed. He had to be asleep… (well, more _been_ asleep), but why? He never normally slept, there were better things to do than sleep! There again was the sharp jab but his annoyance melted away quickly, far faster than it normally would have.

"Come on!" a small voice whispered as a third jab came along.

"Stop it! You'll hurt him!" a second wailed.

The Doctor opened his eyes to two young faces peering over into his, one a boy's with a mass of curly brown hair flying out around his head and the other pixie-like face belonged to a girl with long fairy-princess blonde hair. The boy nudged him again grinning.

"Come on! I want to play some more!"

The corners of the Doctor's mouth twitched. He closed his eyes again and yawned sleepily, "I'm very tired… I think I'll just have a nice nap here, thank you."

"No! No!" squealed the two children.

"You're not playing properly!" the boy moaned. "_And _you're lying right in the middle of the field, so we'll trample _all_ over you! And then you'll be all squashed and flat and Mummy'll be annoyed with us!"

The Doctor sat up and grabbed the boy to ruffle his hair. "You couldn't trample me that much if you _tried_, well, actually now I think of it, _you_ probably could, but don't be mean about your sister."

The girl smiled sweetly to the Doctor, stuck her tongue out at her brother and skipped away to one of the white clothed tables to help herself to some food. The Doctor released the boy who chased after her to argue over a breadstick.

The Doctor remembered where he was, how could he have forgotten? He sat on the floor and smiled as he looked around the courtyard decorated with beautiful white flowers like nothing found on Earth, "well," he thought to himself. "Why would they?" The tables were set out beautifully at the side, a combination of the native food and spectacular dishes from the greatest culinary geniuses in the universe. Everyone looked happy, whether they were chatting to friends and family or admiring the room.

"Boys… always after some sort of grub!"

The Doctor looked up to see a pretty young girl who was awfully familiar laugh at the two children. She looked down at the Doctor and smiled even more broadly.

"You all right down there?" she asked playfully.

The Doctor jumped up to inform her that he was perfectly all right and announced, not at all embarrassed, that children needed to be played with.

"How're you enjoying the party, Romana?" he asked politely.

They chatted for a few more minutes about reprogramming K9 to do odd tasks, the Doctor's grin growing bigger, how good it felt to talk to her again! Soon, a middle aged looking woman came over, her eyes glinting. She came over and nudged the Doctor to draw his attention away from fetching marbles and onto her.

"Who is this lovely lady?" she asked with a smile that almost caused both of them to blush like children.

"Oh, don't get your hopes up! We're old friends from way back and the Doctor is a little old for me… then there's that new bow tie of his!" Romana laughed.

"Bow ties are cool"

"Of course they are, dear," the older woman straightened his tie before turning back to Romana and smiling, "ah well, I can only dream that my boy will want to settle down properly sometime! Last time didn't work out, he had his head in the clouds too much… married rather young I believe… then there was all the gallivanting…"

The woman gabbled on, a person who loves to talk about her child whenever someone starts to listen. The Doctor smiled apologetically at Romana and then gently steered his mother away to spare them both the lecture and dropped off at one of the tables filled with all the others cooing over their younger relatives.

He strode back shaking his head slightly and laughing to himself when he spotted a young man with messy brown hair and serious eyes. The two children ran over the young man and started to clamber all over him, making the serious brown eyes light up and shine with admiration.

"Hey, bro!"

The Doctor walked over and ruffled his younger brother's hair.

"Oy!" and the two children on his lap giggled.

"You're really lucky to have such great kids," the Doctor told him sighing, but then added, "Well, _one_ good kid… I'm not sure about this one though, he's a bit of a monster." indicating to the giggling curly mop.

"I know," he smiled, and then looked up at his brother who was being distracted by something over by the fountain. "I can sense that our conversation will be cut short…"

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go see someone, I'll be back in a minute though," he winked.

The young man watched his older brother walk away. He started to feel old childish thoughts of how the grand Doctor always got the attention and how everyone always saw everything he did, but he shook his head and remembered all the baggage the Doctor carries. And besides, living a simple life wasn't so bad, and he _did_ have great kids. He hugged them and smiled, but he always felt sad that he and his brother barely got a chance to speak anymore.

The Doctor felt a pain while he walked away, it was a pain of a loss he had had, but he didn't know why. He could easily go back and talk to his brother, in a minute, after. He dodged the people dancing on the floor, nodded to the quiet folk sitting down at the tables, and ruffled the hairs of familiar children running by as he aimed to get to the fountain that was in memory of the late Rassilon.

Then he saw her.

She was standing by the fountain watching the water tumbling over Rassilon's staff and into the pool at his feet, thinking; no doubt thinking up a new invention or how Earth textbooks were always wrong. The Doctor could only do one thing.

He walked up to her, reached out and hugged her, a deep hug trying to fill all the empty or bad bits of her life he had caused. Susan, however, did not understand.

"Grandfather! How good it is to see you again!"

He held on tighter to her, and she grew more puzzled.

"Why the hug? Its not like we've been apart long! I can see you've regenerated again, but that's nothing new. And it could have gone worse, I remember that scarf…" she laughed.

He let go of her slowly and looked at her, with her dark hair contrasting her white dress and her smile in her innocent face, the same as ever.

And they began to talk as they always would have done, about small things: the TARDIS, Earth history and so on. He was about to tell her of Nero and Rome burning when suddenly he was lying down again and Susan, the fountain, the people, the courtyard had all disappeared.

Everything was dark, but he could hear a distant voice which became louder and closer gradually until he realised it was someone calling his name. A blurred shape in his eyes began to form back into a face and he was staring up at Amy Pond with her brilliant hair calling the Doctor, looking worried. They were in the TARDIS.

The Doctor sat up and the pain, longing and emptiness flowed back to him.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, you fell asleep and started talking and… and I didn't know if you were okay, I've never seen you sleep before…"

"Its all right, its all right, don't worry about it, Pond," he calmed her down.

She relaxed slightly and went to fetch a cup of tea, still feeling guilty for having woken him up and foolish for panicking.

The Doctor stared into nothingness. They were all gone. Everyone he loved was lost and their ghosts haunted him. They were not seeking revenge, they were memories, joyous ones, that wrapped around him so he felt so alive and protected. Then they were withdrawn so sharply so that all that was left was nothing. Dead. Gone.

That was why he never slept.


End file.
